Riverbend: Five Alarm Funk headlines opening night

Vancouver-based band Five Alarm Funk plans to smash music genres together in the funkiest way possible tonight to kick off the 2017 Riverbend Festival. The eight-man smorgasbord of Canadians will take the Bud Light Stage during their first visit to Tennessee, the farthest south they have traveled in the states.

Lead vocalist and drummer Tayo Branston says the musicians "couldn't be more excited" to bring their unique sound to Chattanooga after building a fan base in Canada over the past several years.

"We're making a big push for everything in the states right now, so we're really gunning for it," Branston says. "I think this will be the first step in a great relationship with the state of Tennessee."

Since launching in 2003, FAF has released six acclaimed albums, including "Sweat," which dropped in March. The band has been characterized as having a funk, rock and even party sound, but Branston describes it best as a "mash of genres under an umbrella of funk."

"When we started as a band, we were really trying to find our sound, so it's taken us the breadth of 14 years to really develop and hone our sound and realize exactly which direction we wanted to go as a band," he says.

FAF is known for engaging audiences through high-energy performances, which Branston says is a workout both onstage and in the musical composition.

"We love energy, we love passion and we love to have fun," he says. "Something we always try to get across to our audiences is that 'just for this moment, forget about everything.' Everybody's got problems and issues that they're trying to deal with and, whatever it may be, forget about it and really enjoy yourself 'cause there's such a positive energy behind our tunes."

With previous albums reflecting the musical evolution of the band, Branston says "Sweat" represents "the all-encompassing knowledge" of what the members have learned in their time together.

"We really kind of wanted to take all of the elements that we've learned from the last 14 years of working together and combine them into the exact sound that we loved, the sound of sweat, the sound that Five Alarm Funk is going to take from here into the future," Branston says.

Previous albums "Anything Is Possible" and "Abandon Earth" won first place in the 2011 and 2015 Western Canadian Music Awards, respectively. The single "Robot," from "Abandon Earth," was nominated for a Leo Award for Music Video of the Year in 2016. The same year, the band also released its first live album/DVD, "Live in the Moment" and toured across Canada and the USA in support, according to a media release.

Branston says that FAF's records lend themselves to the way the band is feeling at a certain time. The music is typically created before the vocals or the name of the track.

"There's always constant material getting worked out, and it's kind of the cream of the crop material that we really hone in and dig on," Branston says. "Basically any kind of feeling, anything that sort of hits along with the way we feel, what the song sounds like is how we go about naming it."

With ages ranging between 27 and 40 and the newest member of the band joining in 2015, Branston says the members continually learn from one another and have become a family unit.

"Being onstage with what feels like family is definitely catalyst to making the band feel great and the band wanting to continue forward," he says.

As they move into the future, FAF is looking to have a more global focus, especially in Europe, the U.S., Japan and Australia. With the new album and a great management team and agents, the musicians are seeing the fruits of their labor come together, according to Branston.

"The band is playing better music than we've ever played and writing better music, so there's so many avenues for the band to take that we feel like this is kinda just the start," he says.

Although the bandmates hang out with each other at times, Branston says the music is mainly what brings them together. If not for the music, he says the band might make it in sports.

"I always thought we'd be a good baseball team if we were to do something else together," he says. "We're pretty lean, we could probably make it around the bases pretty good [if] there's not too much running involved."

He says the band is looking forward to meeting as many people as possible at Riverbend and may even bring a new song to perform during the festival.

"We're very excited to come bring the funk," Branston says. "It's gonna be a heavy show so get ready to dance!"

Email Kimberly Sebring at life@timesfreepress.com.